09 January 2008

Border services planned to pick up Mr. Singh from the temple where he has been given sanctuary about 4:30 a.m., but the scheduled removal time passed as more than 250 protesters blocked the temple entrance.

I'm not sure, who exactly... thinks this is gonna get easier as time goes on. Probably the same folks who criticise Pervez Musharraf for not being able to control those mischievous folks in Waziristan.

My advice to the authorities... if you have to bring in your own bigger mob to get the job done... just do it.

Since his stroke, it has cost taxpayers over $400,000 to provide Singh with free medical care.

Even his deportation was planned to be the most benign possible, with his medically-staffed flight to cost taxpayers $68,700. He was then scheduled to be flown to the state-of-the-art Apollo Hospital in New Delhi.

(h/t reader maureen)

**********

LAIBAR SINGH UPDATE2:

"He didn't have a stroke, he didn't have an aneurism and he isn't paralyzed and he isn't a quadriplegic."

**********

FROM THE COMMENTS:

By Friday, he had been cut adrift. His abandonment was breathtaking. His loudest champion, Harpal Singh Nagra, a leading actor in the noisy airport demonstration that blocked Singh's deportation, uttered a bizarre and sudden renouncement. On the weekend, he told Sun reporter Kim Bolan:

"I don't know anything about Laibar Singh. I am no longer his spokesperson. I am not involved now. I have other things to do."

**********

RELATED: More "Wagging the Multi-Culti Dog"

News stories like this only serve to normalize nuts who should be marginalized, as Harper has tried to do. Reporters like Blanchfield should add a few more numbers to their "Muslim spokesman" rolodex.

Forged passport!?!?Why does anyone even try to follow the correct route anymore?I have friends who have been trying LEGALLY to get back to Canada from Pakistan for almost a year...Canadian immigration is stopping them!He's Canadian, their son was born in Canada, they went back to Pakistan to help her unhealthy dad.

What is sad, is that the Sikh community pledged their support to cover this mans medical costs..but according to Dr.Roy, when they found out how much an invalid costs to care for 24/7, they bailed on him.

So, in saying that..what is the point of the excercise?

It is to show the powers that be that they, the Sikhs, in their numbers, are the real power in their community, not the duly elected govt.

Surrey temple latest stop on Laibar Singh's goodbye tourMany politicians who supported bid to stay seem to have gone oddly quietPete McMartin, Vancouver SunPublished: Tuesday, December 18, 2007In his latest stop on his farewell tour of the Lower Mainland, Laibar Singh landed at Surrey's Guru Nanak temple early Saturday morning, his third in the space of six days. He arrived as an orphan might:

Forsaken, which, I must say, left me confused.

I believed, as an outsider looking in, that almost everyone in the Sikh community wanted Singh to stay in Canada -- no, demanded Singh stay in Canada! -- and that he was a symbol around which the community had coalesced.That community, we were told by everyone in it from its politicians to its media to the thousands of excitable protesters who brought traffic to a halt at Vancouver airport, believed Singh was being unfairly persecuted by a heartless and racist Canadian government, and that if we were a compassionate nation, we would allow Singh to stay.

That was Wednesday. At the time, Singh seemed safely sheltered within the bosom of his community.

By Friday, he had been cut adrift. His abandonment was breathtaking. His loudest champion, Harpal Singh Nagra, a leading actor in the noisy airport demonstration that blocked Singh's deportation, uttered a bizarre and sudden renouncement. On the weekend, he told Sun reporter Kim Bolan:

"I don't know anything about Laibar Singh. I am no longer his spokesperson. I am not involved now. I have other things to do."

Funny, this was the guy who travelled to Ottawa in October to pitch Singh's case. Now he doesn't know anything about him?

When rumours started that the New Westminster temple where Singh was staying no longer wanted him there (where Singh had gone after the Abbotsford temple where he had been staying washed his hands of him), the good folks at the Guru Nanak temple came to his rescue. He is now being cared for without aid of the hundreds of thousands of dollars Singh's champions had vowed to pony up.

(That begs the question: Has any money been collected in Singh's name? If so, where is it?)

Meanwhile, those politicians who were happy to support Singh's case seem to have gone oddly quiet. Fleetwood-Port Kells MP Nina Grewal, who personally lobbied Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day for the 60-day reprieve that Day granted Singh, did not return my call. (During that lobbying, Grewal called Day on a three-way conference call. The other person on the line with her was Harpal Singh Nagra.) Singh supporter Newton-North Delta MP Sukh Dhaliwal did not return my call.

The only politician who did was Surrey-Newton MLA Harry Bains, who also spoke at the protest. Bains said he was still in favour of allowing Singh to stay in Canada because, he believed, we would be "sending him back to a death sentence."

"If he goes back to India, there is no way he can afford his health care there."

But what, I asked, of all those hundreds of thousands of dollars his supporters vowed to pay for Singh's medical bills if he were allowed to stay here? Where was it? Wouldn't that money go further in India, where the top health care is just as good as it is here?

Yes, he admitted, but that was not the issue. The issue was our compassion in the face of Singh's condition. As for those who vowed to support Singh financially if he was allowed to stay."Those who made those promises," Bains said, "should be held responsible."

It was not, he said, fair to Canadian taxpayers. How can you ask them to foot Singh's enormous medical bills after making those promises?

But, as I said to Bains, that is exactly what he is asking Canadian taxpayers to do. He knows the government would not accept private donations for health bills in lieu of striking down Singh's deportation order. It would be political suicide, if not illegal. Ultimately, Canadian taxpayers would end up having to foot the bill.

And I'm not sure they won't yet.

In Ottawa, Canada Border Services Agency spokesman Derek Mellon said the deportation order was still in effect.

"Mr. Singh's removal has only been delayed for safety and security reasons."

But then there was that front page photo of Singh in The Sun Monday. He looked frail. Serial orphanage has got to be hard on a body like Singh's. Suddenly, he was doubly as piteous as he was before: once for losing the use of his body to quadriplegia, twice, for losing his way among the politics and factionalism of the Sikh community. He looked lost.

I still think he should be deported. I still think his supporters should bankroll his health care in India.